Just stuff, sans pictures. Sorry.

Dear Jessa ~

It's been a really long and tiring day.  So hopefully this email isn't too disjointed.  I started to type up the details of today, but realized it was far too long and depressing and you just didn't need to read all of that.  So I moved it to my journal instead.  Suffice it to say that I am tired. And emotionally drained.  Somedays there just has to be really bad days with kids to balance the really awesome ones.

On Wednesday evening Abby got a fever.  She was super cuddly, which is nice by itself, but sad when you know it's because she's sick.  The fever stayed over 101, even with medicine, through Thursday and it was low-grade Friday morning.  But then the rest of Friday and Saturday it was gone.  Hooray!  But her fussiness stayed.  [sigh]  So let's hope that's gone by tomorrow.  :D  Poor girl.  We ended up canceling a date on Friday due to sick Abby and lack of older babysitters (I prefer my babysitters to be a little older if they're dealing with bedtime).  So instead we bought Zupas to go and had a picnic in the backyard, which was fun.  Though, turns out, soup isn't a great blanket picnic food.  Haha.  Hooray for washing machines!

The garden is doing great!  BJ shredded one zucchini up for me yesterday (and then he made a chocolate zucchini cake for me!  Because he loves me.  And because we were supposed to take one to the family reunion, but due to a massive storm and lightning that knocked out power in Hobby Lobby while I was there, and at least 3 stop lights, and Costco taking more than an hour to get my pictures printed, there was no way I'd be home in time to make it myself) and it ended up making 16 cups of shredded zucchini.  So now I have 7 bags of zucchini ready to make chocolate zucchini cake all winter long.  You should be jealous, as that's apparently all I'll be eating all summer.  I already had 4 bags out there.  And who knows how many more zucchinis there will be? (Though, maybe this problem would be solved by picking and eating them earlier.

My lawn is not doing so great.  There are several dead spots.  The weeds, however, are doing fantastic. So I spent much of Friday night testing sprinklers and getting soaked to the bone (Kessa, too).  Then Saturday morning was spent mowing, applying weed and feed, and pushing all the good wishes into my lawn that I can.  And hoping the dead spots aren't due to grubs.  We may need to re-seed parts of my yard.  [sigh]

Thank goodness for being able to chat with a customer service rep instead of talking on the phone. I can have a screaming baby and still "hear" what is said. And turns out, I'm a lot more bold and confrontational in writing. No, I really and truly don't want to add television. Really. I don't care how many different ways you word it. And yes, I am willing to be transferred 3 times and chat for more than 45 minutes (and counting!) to save $10/month. There is no way I'd do that on the phone.  Sadly, I never got my $10 and never got resolution.  I have to wait until my next bill to see.  [sigh]

Post on Facebook:  Don't worry, folks. I've researched yet another problem for you so you don't have to. If your 4-year old severely overdoses on probiotics, she'll probably be fine. She may get a tummy ache or burp a lot, but nothing to worry about. Most likely she'll just go outside and play with friends all day. ‪#‎firstcalltoposioncontrol‬ ‪#‎mommybadge‬

Ok, enough of the depressing stuff.  On to fun things.  But quickly, as it's past my bedtime and I'm going running at 6:30 am.  :S

I did a training breakfast for two new primary presidencies this week.  It was really fun to get to know them.  Part of what I trained on was the resources on lds.org.  Holy cow, Jessa. THERE IS SO MUCH ON THERE!  So many things I wish I had known when I was in the ward Primary.  (Or maybe they're new since then?)  Things like each lesson having a supplement web page that has coloring pages and talks and activities that are all pertinent to that lesson.  Holy cow!  Someday, if you have time, you really should go poke around on lds.org/primary.  It's great.

I joined a freezer dinner group this month.  So I made 7 bags of chicken cacciatore and came home with one of those, lasagna, enchiladas, italian chicken, chicken flautas, taco soup and chili.  Awesome.  Especially as most of my grocery budget went to food/snacks for Island Park.  :)  Hooray for meals for most of the rest of the month!

We had the Goddard family reunion up at the flat last night.  The girls loved it.  Kessa and a couple other little kids grabbed some apples that had fallen off the apple tree and used them to throw up and try to knock down more apples.  Awesome.  Also, Ali, the daughter of… Marsha?  Mary?  I don't remember exactly… anyway, she was talking to me and she said that a year or two ago you played a lot with her kids and they still remember you very fondly and were very sad that you weren't there this year.  Nor will you be there next year.  I thought I'd pass that along.

We bought Hale Center Theater season passes for 2014!  I'm so excited!  Wooo!  We've been wanting to do this for 5 years now and we finally did it!

There was a special priesthood training at church today.  Priesthood met for both the 2nd and 3rd hour. But I'll make BJ tell you more about that next week.  (He's already up in bed, waiting for me to finish this.)

BJ decided that those hand-drawn pictures I put up on the wall a year or two ago just had to go.  (I see what he thinks about my art.  [sniff])  So he hung up a bunch of our family pictures.  I printed some more off at CostCo and picked out frames, but the power went out and then they could only accept cash.  So I'll have to go get those tomorrow.  I'll take a picture when it's all up.  We're putting them in the hallway and letting it just be a growing wall of pictures.

Abby is starting to learn to eat with a spoon and fork.  She's quite insistent.  And she's not very good.  But I guess she'll never get better unless she tries, right?  We just try to do it mostly with finger food so when hunger overrides interest, she'll just eat with her fingers instead.  Doing it with soup?  Less effective.

Abby repeats pretty much everything she hears, which makes it hard to tell which words she knows and which words she's just repeating.  But I think I can confidently tack "phone" onto the list.  She sees any phone (especially mine), including toys and will say, "phone, phone."

Kessa starts preschool on Wednesday and her teacher is Mrs. Smart!  Haha.  We actually go meet her and see the classroom tomorrow.

Ok, this week won't have pictures or videos.  I'll tack them on next week.  But I really need to get to bed.  I haven't gotten enough sleep as is.

Kessaisms (but this week mostly BJ and Tianna-isms):

• Kessa: Jesus is an impressive guy. He does things we can't do.
• Kessa: Jesus can see our skin even when we can't because we have clothes on. He's very special.
• Me: What was I working on? Before I got sidetracked to Middle Earth?
• Me: A passenger on a Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca, Morocco, to Bologna, Italy, gave birth to a boy mid-air.
  BJ: What nationality would the baby be?
  Me: I'd guess whatever nationality the parents are. Or, what sea would that be over? Mediterranean.
  BJ: Mediterranean actually means Middle Earth.
  Me: Are you saying the baby's nationality is Middle Earth?
  BJ: Yes, yes I am.
• Me: I'm pretty sure no where in the scriptures does it say, "I'm a pot head."
• BJ and I were talking about needing to get 1-hour photos at CostCo, specifically about the timeline of picking them up. BJ: Well, walk into CostCo, an hour will disappear, and your photos will be ready!

<3 Tianna